My "Pilot Season" Age

If TV has taught me anything, it’s that life begins at twenty-seven.

Think about it: Look at all the great sitcoms on TV: Chuck, How I Met Your Mother, The Office, Friends, etc.

The main characters of these shows were all twenty-seven years of age when they began.

So now that *I'm* twenty-seven, I’m wondering when my life will spin out of control and start me down a hilarious roller coaster of situational comedy.

• Will I start a new job and have to endure the antics of my crazy co-workers?
• Or will my best friends get married and inspire me to find the love of my life?
• Maybe a sexy new neighbor will move in next door and bring me out of my nerdy shell?
• Perhaps rumors of redundancy will cause my boss to come up with zany reasons to boost morale?

Personally I’m hoping to download a top secret government computer into my brain.

Now before you go and say “But Stuart, that’s TV; it’s not real!” let me just say that art imitates life as much as life imitates art – so I believe that if I live my life as wackily (is that a word?) as the people on TV do, I will somehow go through major character development on a weekly basis. (There’s gotta be a method to the madness, right?)

As long as I throw in funny sarcastic quips about everything that happens around me as I do.

Chasing that Cheese

Kurt Vonnegut once said that “writing is not a way to make a living; it is (instead) a very human way of dealing with life.”

That phrase always stuck with me since my biggest (and by far least attainable) dream in life is to be a professional writer – the kind who gets paid to write in the style he so chooses.

In my case, it’d be playwriting. (or blogging?)

And now that you’re done laughing, I’d like point out that I came close to achieving this dream when I first moved out here to Los Angeles. I somehow found a theatre company willing to read my work.

However, this is where the “came close,” comes in; I never actually got paid for doing this. Quite the opposite, actually – I ended up having to pay them (as did everyone else in the company for the theatre space)

I learned a lot while writing there, but eventually my day job(s) got the best of me and I had to quit due to lack of time. I don’t think I wrote very much since then, even after I had time again. I think it had a lot to do with how social I was being: birthdays kept coming up, people kept asking to hang out; I kept traveling to all sorts of places…..! I just didn’t want to make the time to sit down & write because something better always came along.

I think that’s part of the sacrifice that writers make for their art – and something I really need to start doing if I ever want to even pursue this. Not that I actually think I’ll ever become a professional writer – but I feel I need to “get this out of my system” while I can or else it’s always going to bug me.

So here’s where I bring up my New Year’s Resolution of mine by vowing to spend my Sundays writing. (maybe Saturdays & Wednesday nights, too) Right now, I have two, possibly three ideas that I’m working on – one of which includes that screenplay I talked about last year. I worked on that one for maybe three months before deciding I hated where it was going and tossed it. (that’s another one of my flaws – I take too long to realize something is shit)

Anyway, if any of you wants to read anything I’ve written so far & give feedback, please don’t hesitate to let me know and please don’t hold back on the criticism. The only requirement I have on critiques is to elaborate on why you like /dislike something. (just saying “I hate this” doesn’t help me make it better)

Man, I’ve really gone Hollywood. I’ve become one of those “Read my screenplay!” people. *groan*

Turning 27 this year

It's my birthday today......!

CELEBRATE ME!

Do it....or I will F*ck you up.

De-Friended!

I consider myself a pretty good friend to the people I know:

I’m punctual
I try to be considerate
I like to think that I’m funny / not obnoxious.
I even do that thing where I ask people how they are and listen when they answer.

So it kind of surprised me to discover that a certain friend of mine that I used to work with “de-friended” me on Facebook.


Granted we don’t talk / see each other as much since I left that job, but I never expected my friend (who we’ll call SHHU) to actively indicate via internet that they no longer want to keep in touch with me! Especially since we still have several mutual friends. But I guess it happens. People “clean up” their facebook profiles and cut ties with old (facebook) friends all the time.

As I said, though, I’m only “kinda surprised” because SHHU is kind of a “drama queen” that way. And since I’m not really sure what I did to warrant such an act, I can only shrug and move on.

But still, it’s a little insulting to find out that a person I’ve been nothing but nice to doesn’t even considers me their facebook friend anymore (the lowest of friendships).

Valentines Day 2010

For Valentine’s Day, I suggest you all read the entirety of “A Softer World” Comics.

Because it pretty much goes to show just how many freaks there are out there. So be glad your S.O. isn’t one of them.

Why do we love zombies?

This weekend was the opening of the “Zombie’s in Love” Art Gallery at the Nucleus.

And as could be expected, the zombie fanatics were out in force that night – me & my friends included. I even wore my “In case of a Zombie Attack” shirt (from A Softer World) for the occasion.




The event itself was very cool. Several of the gallery’s artists were there, promoting & signing their art; a lot of students from Art Center got the chance to draw portraits of live “zombie models” (volunteers who came to the opening dressed as zombies?) and there was even a hip-hop group (dressed as zombies) who performed some kind of “zombie-wedding” hip-hop routine.

Zombie modeling

And while a lot of the artwork displayed was pretty great, I noticed that a lot of them didn’t seem to make sense. One in particular was entitled “Zombie Kong” which was a painting of a zombie King Kong in his famous “climbing the Empire State Building” scene. The depiction of Kong was great—especially his decaying insides—but I didn’t understand what King Kong had to do with zombies. Also, there were several paintings / works of art there that were kind of cute (?) that I thought just went against the whole disgusting visual appeal of zombies.

That *IS* why we all love zombie movies, right? Because of how intriguing it is to look at something so disgusting? It’s similar to why people slow down on the freeway so they can look at car accidents or a house that’s burning down: because we cannot NOT look away from it.

Isn’t that also why we all cheer whenever someone dies on screen, horror movie fans? The violence and gore tickles this dark side of ourselves that says “Yeah! I like violence & evil to a certain degree and this is a perfectly acceptable outlet for that!”

……………well, that’s why *I* like zombies.

I mean, look at this face! Don’t you just want to stare at it for a few seconds so you can admire all the gross details that went into this?

I love the teeth

I’m ashamed to say that I only have a few pictures of the event. It seemed like everyone else was taking a picture of all the paintings / zombies that I didn’t really feel the need to take any of my own.

SIDENOTE: A Google Search of “Zombies are Awesome” revealed the following results:
Yahoo Answers to the Question.
Zombie 101 - "Zombies in the Media"
Zombie Defense Course

SIDENOTE 2: Check out the Nucleus’ next show: Curiouser & Curiouser - Art inspired by the "Alice in Wonderland" stories.

R.I.P. Pasadena Playhouse

As those of you who live in Los Angeles may already know, the Pasadena Playhouse is bankrupt and will be closing it’s doors this Sunday night after the last performance of Camelot.

This hit me pretty hard because I used to work for the Playhouse a couple of years ago and used to see their shows on a regular basis. And there had quite a few hit shows while that I was privileged to see:


Of course, they weren’t ALL great – I can’t apologize enough to those I made go with me to see “MASK” – but I’m gonna miss the place once it closes.


This also means the Furious Theatre Company (which I have to admit, I enjoyed more) might be evicted from their home as well. (although I see that they’re still going on with their first production, opening February 17th)


I quit working there in 2009 because the stress of having two jobs was finally getting to me (although I still volunteer there as a New Generations Docent). But I still keep in touch with a lot of people who still work there…..for a few more days. They’re all essentially losing their jobs – and they received about as much notice as the people who found out from the article in the L.A. Times. (One of the many problems with the recent Management of this theatre)


The people who I really feel sorry for, though, are their subscribers: these are people who paid for a full season of plays and basically just (over)paid to see the one show.

Anyway, the reason I mention all of this is because I wanted to plug the Campaign to Save the Pasadena Playhouse (accepting pledges) to anyone and everyone who thinks that the “State Theatre of California” should be re-opened: Pledge Here

No pressure, though. I hate people who push their “worthy causes” onto others through guilt, etc. so it’d be hypocritical if I did the same. I haven’t pledged yet since I’m still balancing all my “monies,” but I’m going to once I figure out how much I still have left in the bank.


The silver lining about all this is that the Pasadena Playhouse is still considered a historical landmark so the theatre itself isn’t going anywhere, it’s just shutting down. (Much like the Derby did when it closed last year) The Playhouse actually closed down a while back and was re-opened when a generous campaign / new management came to revitalize it back in the 1980s, so hopefully it’ll happen again.


Till then, though….!

When meeting a celebrity....

It’s true what people say: there are a lot of celebrities that live in Los Angeles.

But contrary to popular belief, they aren’t ‘everywhere.’ I mean, they’re around somewhere, but you don’t actually expect to see one walking down the streets. So when you do see one, it’s still a pretty big deal.

……it’s kind of like spotting a Deer in the Forest!

In fact, I’m pretty sure that’s how celebrities should be treated: like the wild majestic deer.
Let me explain: I believe that most celebrities just to go about their daily lives unmolested. Sure they want their work acknowledged, but mostly they’d like to be left alone. So when you see one, don’t freak out and make a big deal out of it – they’ll get scared and scamper away. Instead, just admire them from a distance; maybe point out to your nearby friends in a hushed whisper: “hey, isn’t that ______ from ___________??”

Now celebrities aren’t blind. Or deaf for that matter. (well, Marlee Matlin is, but do you even know who she is?) They’re bound to notice you trying to non-chalantly admire them from a distance: they’ll look up, alert each other of the potential danger and may even stare back at you once they realize they’ve been recognized.

Hopefully, though, they’ll realize that you’re not a stalker / paparazzi, appreciate the fact that you respected their privacy, and start to relax. And maybe (Just MAYBE) if they’re not too preoccupied with whatever made them venture out into public in the first place, they’ll even come up to you and say hi.

(Or at least they should because “it’s all about the fans,” right?)

At this point, the only thing you can really say is “I’m a really big fan,” because anything else will just seem weird.

And this is exactly what I did when I saw Felicia Day, Jeff Lewis, Michele Boyd, & Teal Sherer from The Guild this past Friday while going to see “Proof” at the Noho Arts Center. They didn’t come up and say hi to me or anything, but that’s okay. I don’t think it would’ve ended well if they did.

See, I didn’t even know “The Guild” started their 3rd season and the person they came to see (who was performing in “Proof”) also plays a character from that season……so I would’ve been lying if I had actually said that I was a big fan of their show when I hadn’t actually seen their latest season.

Also, I think I saw Nicholas D'Agosto there, too. (he played Hunter – Jan’s assistant – in season 3 of “The Office”)